From MINDLESS to MINDFUL Classrooms Reflections on India's Struggle for Culture Shift in Education
$62.00
Author: | A K Jalaluddin Edited by Arpan Mitra |
ISBN 13: | 9788195388370 |
Binding: | Hardbound |
Language: | English |
Year: | 2022 |
Subject: | Education and Psychology |
About the Book
To help learners reach their potential, the classroom must provide hands-on and mindful experience simultaneously. A learner has to think about not just what she learns, but how she learns. Insatiable curiosity and knowledge creation through discovery are the hallmarks of self-organized and self-regulated learning. This can be achieved through behaviour modification at early stages, and once a child adapts to it, she can remain a lifelong learner. Keeping one's mind aware and focused are the pre-conditions of conscious learning. However, the present classroom arrangements, and the role played by the teacher as the single source and arbiter of knowledge, are hardly conducive to the development of such conscious self-learning. For that, we need a change in the classroom culture - a change in how we perceive education. It is not an easy job, because the prevailing system, like any other, has in-built mechanisms to resist such change. Positive and sustainable changes can only be initiated by properly planned and conscious efforts, and not through a series of ad ho changes that we are accustomed to. The struggle is not just against external forces, but more with our own selves. Learning itself is a struggle. It continues as long as we learn. The classroom, thus, becomes a metaphor for the extended social and mental space where learning takes place. This book is an attempt to identify the resistive forces embedded in our present education system. It also shows how we can initiate a sustainable transformation within the system with small and manageable efforts.